Can your 4 year old dress themselves?

[MishMooshAndMogwai]

She's only just 4 and maybe I have unrealistic expectations but ALL of her friends aged 3-5 can dress themselves and have been for some time.

She can manage trousers but pants, socks, tops, jumpers and shoes all end in tears and tantrums.

We've had the 'lessons' making a game out of it and having fun with it and ive just plain shouted at her for not getting ready in a morning when we're in a rush.

Should she be doing it by now? She's gonna have to get ready for PE by herself in September and she can't even put socks on!

She is 4.5 BTW. This is a fairly new development.

Don't worry - it's 5 whole months till September and there'll be a lot of development in that time. Perhaps something to work on?

DD2 can't get herself dressed yet. She turned 4 at the end of February. She can do the odd thing, for example: she can put her trousers onbut struggles with tops and tights. She can put her coat on but can't do the zip and she can put her own shoes on. I'm not too worried as there is plenty of time for her to learn. There are a lot of things that she couldn't do five months ago that she can do now.

DD1 could get herself dressed at 3 but even she needed a little help at school - top shirt buttons are a nightmare!

Btw, I don't think they make them change their socks/tights for PE when they're small. I think that they let them put their shorts over the top of their tights. DD1 struggled with tights until recently and she's 7.

I used to try and remember not to put her in tights on PE and swimming days.

Yes, he can, but usually chooses not to.
Been doing it since 3 something.
Shoes regularly go on the wrong foot, and teeshirts can be back to front.
Only mastered Zips last week at 3y10m.
Buttons occasionally.

They are all different, and pick things up at a different pace. If she can make an attempt, I'm sure YR will be fine.

DS still needs help with his shoes sometimes (if laced) and he is 10years old! . I think this varies by child really, DS could no way dress himself entirely at 4 years old and this was not for want of me trying to teach him. He fundamentally had zero desire to learn to do it and when he was forced to try (by me) he would really really struggle.

The difficulty was that often when we were leaving the house I would be in a bit of a hurry and that would end up in frustration for both of us. So I decided to try and teach him to dress only when there was not rush to leave, to be calm and patient , to play games with him etc to encourage him . For a few weeks, I only asked him to get himself dressed if I felt we had the time and I had the patience for this process. otherwise I just dressed him, which he was perfectly happy for me to do.

This made a slight difference, in that he seemed slightly more willing to try to dress himself (normally he just refused) but he still really struggled to do it for himself so would get very very frustrated. In the end I decided he wasn't ready to do this yet and stopped trying to get him to do it until he was older and in fact he did get more able as he got older but he just didn't have the motor skills at 4 years old to do it.

DS did turn out to have ASD so that was probably the root of his problem. I am not suggesting this is an issue at all for your child, but just that I had no idea that DS had this issue when he was 4 ( he was diagnosed at 6 years old) but I did realise that he really could not do it, even if he tried to.

Try and take away the struggle element with your child and really work out if they can do this or if it is just a power struggle. you may find that your dd's motor skills improve with time. The key thing is take away the need to have her "dress herself by the time she goes to school" as this is just a pressure on you to possibly make her do something she isn't quite ready to do yet.

The fact that you are trying to teach her is enough. Nothing is learnt immediately and some kids take a bit longer than others to get things

Sorry for slight derail of thread..

Bumbling, how did his asd manifest and how did he get diagnosed? I sometimes worry DS has got aspergers (he displays some signs of it).

3.5 year old does with minimum intervention, try laying the clothes out in a 'person' shape on the floor, sounds weird but worth a try!